Sabrina Carpenter is redefining female sexuality

After decades of women in pop being punished for having sex lives, the singer has made it cool to be unashamedly, unabashedly horny, writes Olivia Petter

Carpenter recently split from her boyfriend, Barry Keoghan (Supplied by label)

Few demographics get it tougher than horny women. Think about it. If you have the audacity to be both a woman and a sexual being, it will be used against you in some capacity.

Maybe you’ve been slut-shamed by your ex. Or judged for your sexual escapades by your frenemies. Perhaps you’ve been called nasty names, ranging from “tart” to “wh***”, for doing things men have done without so much as ruffling a single feather their entire lives.

I’ve been subjected to all of these things – some more than once – as I suspect some of you have, too, which is one of the reasons why I am a firm fan of Sabrina Carpenter, a woman who is fast becoming a Gen Z poster child for sexual agency.

I was sceptical at first – too much pop; not enough fizz. But the 25-year-old’s new album, Short n’ Sweet, dropped last week and I could already recite the majority of its lyrics. I’m not the only one, either; it has already skyrocketed through the charts and is set to be one of the biggest records of the year.

There are some serious bops, including “Taste” and “Slim Pickins”, as well as the hit singles, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”, but the talk-of-the-town track is undoubtedly “Bed Chem”.

This is, to put it bluntly, the horniest song of the year. Perhaps of the decade. Rumoured to be about Carpenter’s on-off boyfriend, actor Barry Keoghan, its lyrics are primarily about thirsting after a “cute boy with the white jacket and the thick accent” and fantasising about having sex with him. It’s not subtle: “come right on me,” she sings at one point, later adding: “I bet we’d have really good bed chem / how you pick me up, pull ’em down, turn me round.”

The album is in keeping with a personal brand Carpenter has been forging for herself for a while now. Consider her infamous outros for “Nonsense”, a hit track on her previous album. The musician earned a reputation for changing the lyrics every time she performed it live, mostly switching between sexual innuendos.

One notable addition to the canon took place at Coachella, when Carpenter referenced a viral scene in Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s film in which Keoghan starred. “Man his knees so weak, he had to spread mine,” she sang before referencing the moment Keoghan’s character drinks bath water mixed with semen: “He’s drinkin’ my bath water like it’s red wine.”

Things went even further during Carpenter’s recent appearance on Chicken Shop Date, when host Amelia Dimoldenberg sang an outro: “Went to London ’cause I had a hot date / The food was average, but the company was great / Four plus four, me and Amelia ate.” Whispering, Carpenter finished it off: “Later, I’m going to get my p**** ate.”

All this feels very refreshing, particularly when you consider the way female pop stars who even had sex – let alone talked about it – used to be treated. Consider the way Britney Spears was famously vilified for having sex with Justin Timberlake when they were dating back in the 1990s. Or how Taylor Swift was frequently grilled about her famous exes whenever she was interviewed as a young musician. Women in the music industry simply weren’t allowed to have a sex life. And if they did, they were ruthlessly shamed for it.

Carpenter is here to change that. There are others, too. Like Charli XCX, whose album Brat has gone on to define not just the music scene but the entire cultural zeitgeist. Its most popular track – the “Guess” remix featuring Billie Eilish – is deliciously and unabashedly sexual, with lyrics including: “You wanna try it, bite it, lick it, spit it. Pull it to the side and get all up in it.”

The best part? People love it. And the fact that nobody is questioning the character of either of these women – or anyone else talking about sex in music – shows how far we’ve come when it comes to accepting and celebrating female sexuality. Long may it continue.